


Let this be light work

by caughtinanocean



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes is the Yoko Ono of the Avengers, Engagement, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Humor, Light Angst, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Marriage, Not Canon Compliant, Pining, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Reunions, Team Cap on the run, there is a sled dog puppy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 05:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19387657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caughtinanocean/pseuds/caughtinanocean
Summary: On the run with Sam and Natasha, Steve finds the words to describe his commitment to Bucky. As with most of Steve’s decisions, there are unintended consequences.“It’s no use,” Natasha tells Sam. “You won’t get him to go out and flirt. Steve here’s a married man.”They’re somewhere in Croatia, and Sam’s been hard at work, trying to pull Steve away from a busy night of sketching and staring at his phone. He wants to go out and drink plum brandy and dance with the locals.“You should go without me,” Steve says, hazy.Married. A married man. Isn’t that something?





	Let this be light work

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much to the lovely [mambo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mambo) for looking this over! Title is from ["Trace of Us" by BOII](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKPe-2li2TE) and was chosen by my tumblr followers in a very scientific poll.

“It’s no use,” Natasha tells Sam. “You won’t get him to go out and flirt. Steve here’s a married man.” 

They’re somewhere in Croatia, and Sam’s been hard at work, trying to pull Steve away from a busy night of sketching and staring at his phone. He wants to go out and drink plum brandy and dance with the locals. 

“You should go without me,” Steve says, hazy. _Married_. A married man. Isn’t that something?

“Fine,” Sam says. “More plum brandy for me, and less competing with your small ass for attention.” 

“You should try cherry,” Natasha tells him, rifling through her bag for the right shade of lipstick. “Go. I’ll meet you there.” 

“How you gonna know where to find me?” Sam says. “Never mind, answered it myself.” 

He heads out. 

_Married_ , Steve is still stuck on that. _Married_. 

—

“You haven’t thought about it like that before, have you?” Natasha says, painting her lips a dark cherry red, like the brandy she was talking about, in the small hotel mirror. She isn’t even looking. 

“Wasn’t exactly an option in 1938,” Steve says, looking down. It’s still new, talking about this with someone. “Or 1942. And then I came back, and it would have been an option, except for the part where Bucky was dead. And then he wasn’t dead, but — Well, you get the picture.” 

“How long were you together, before the war?” She’s applying mascara now. 

“My fifteenth birthday. Bucky was sixteen,” Steve says. They kissed for the first time on the roof; there were fireworks lighting up the sky. It was — everything.

“That’s common law, you know,” Natasha says. “Well, if you lived together for seven years.” 

“We moved in after my ma died,” Steve says. “I don’t think we got to seven years sharing a place.” He has to stop gripping the pencil so it doesn’t snap.

Natasha’s teasing up her still-surprising shock of blonde hair. “Did you talk about it being forever?”

“We went back and forth for a while. One of us would have a fit about the other one living a ‘normal life,’ and try and break things off. The most we ever made it was a month. After a while, we knew,” Steve says. 

“And Agent Carter?” Natasha asks. She’s dressed (for once, not to kill). Steve is struck by her craft, the way she stands out to fit in. No one will miss her, looking like that; no one will think she’s the Black Widow, either. 

“I cared about her,” Steve says. “It wasn’t easy. I told her about Bucky, eventually.” He swallows, that confused time vivid in his mind. He’d been drawn to Peggy, to the comfortable understanding and bright spark between them, but no amount of drawn could ever have taken him away from Bucky Barnes. Telling Peggy had been scarier than jumping on a bomb, but it was the right thing to do. He still feels the shame of it, of being a coward and keeping his secret as long as he had.

Bucky had needed him, then, and hadn’t wanted to. He’d done everything to try and push Steve into Peggy’s arms so he could break apart alone. Steve hadn’t let him. It was his turn to do the rescuing, the caretaking, and he did it, he was _there_ , until -- 

“No. Marriage isn’t easy,” Natasha says, with a sympathetic smile. “I’m heading out. How do I look?” She does a twirl. 

Steve rolls his eyes. “Hideous. Worse than a bikini.”

Natasha leaves with a laugh. _Married_ , Steve thinks, left to his own devices. 

—

Steve sketches Bucky curled up in a warm bed, a ring on his finger. There’s so much Steve could give him, now. He’s on the run, but they could still have a life — a marriage, friends who know they’re together, the kinds of nice things they never could have found a dime for, in the past. 

“Call him already,” Sam says. “Get off your mopey ass.” 

“He doesn’t want me to,” Steve says. He shades the errant waves of hair falling into Bucky’s face. 

Sam sighs and goes back to cards with Natasha. 

— 

A lot of people flirt with Steve, even when he’s keeping a low profile. It’s touches on the arm and hair tosses and — all manner of grabbing. Steve has never really known what to say. He’s always been flattered, not interested, not interested in hurting anyone’s feelings. He knows what rejection is like. 

He’s in Bolivia, exploring a vibrant market with Natasha and Sam, the first time he does it. A beautiful girl — young, too young — with long hair, and dark eyes, comes shyly forward and asks if Steve will come with her that night, dancing. Steve hasn’t yet picked up a word of Quechua, but one of the girl’s friends speaks Spanish, and Natasha translates from there. The words travel down the line. 

The market bustles around them. The girl and her friends all watch him with curious, hopeful expressions. Natasha and Sam simply wait. 

“Tell her,” Steve says, making the decision. “Tell her I’m married. Otherwise, I’d love to.” 

Natasha smirks as the friend translates what Steve says. They chat for a moment, and then say their goodbyes. Steve’s Spanish is getting better — he catches something Natasha says about talent for languages. “She says your wife is very lucky,” Natasha tells him. “Speaking of your wife, you should call him.”

Sam spots someone selling salteñas, and drags them towards the savory, enticing smell. Steve eats fourteen. 

—

From then on, it’s Steve’s default response. The handsy young man at the club in Bogotá? Steve can’t come to the bathroom, married. The society girl in Paramaribo? They can come sailing, but she should know that he’s married. They’ve been in South America too long, Natasha says. They travel light, north, towards Panama. 

In Panama, they board a cruise ship to Lisbon. Natasha is a bored heiress, spoiled and stupid; Sam is the boy-toy, and Steve is the muscle. He plays it monosyllabic, and dull, but the body tends to make people stop caring about things like personality. By the end of the trip, they’ve quietly taken down a drug smuggler, and everybody on the ship knows that “Jesse” is married. 

— 

The thing is — being on the run is fun, actually. He pretends to be different people, and he sees different places. But it would be more fun if Bucky were here. It would be more fun to disappear into the crowd of a Bogotá gay club if Bucky were there, grinding up against him in the neon lights. It would be more fun to pretend to be Natasha’s idiot bodyguard if Bucky could hear the sly jokes Steve gets away with because everyone thinks he’s stupid. 

The delicious food he tries everywhere would taste better stolen off of Bucky’s plate. He hates being ogled by a whole damn boat, but if Bucky were there to crack jokes and play the stranger that gets him into bed, it would be better. 

Steve found the person he was going to share his life with when he was six years old, with a bruised face and scraped knees. Losing Bucky, living while knowing he was gone was pure, numb grief. Living without Bucky, while Bucky is alive and out there, is its own bitter drink — especially when Steve knows what Bucky’s been through, what he’s still going through. Bucky took care of him forever, and it’s Steve’s turn — it’s still Steve’s turn.

Steve aches with the desire to just hold him close sometimes. After everything, Bucky probably hasn’t had anybody hold him close and whisper comforting nothings in his ear. If someone _has_ done that for Bucky — well, Steve’s feelings on the matter are complicated. 

“Call him,” Natasha snaps, breaking Steve’s train of thought. They’re in a café in Lisbon, and Sam is either flirting or making friends with a whole table full of Portuguese Naval Officers — Steve isn’t sure yet. 

“He doesn’t want to see me,” Steve tells her, after a long pause. “Bucky’s had enough things forced on him. I won’t be another.” 

Natasha softens a little, but she still looks annoyed. “Have you thought about _why_ he’s pushing you away?” 

Steve shrugs, noncommittal. (Yes, of course, constantly). 

Natasha rolls her eyes. “Think harder.”

—

There’s an op in Lisbon — some HYDRA goon in hiding, that Steve beats up with his own two fists. Steve doesn’t call Bucky. 

— 

He and Sam are out for their morning run. They’re somewhere in the Alps — a little resort town that’s nearly abandoned in the offseason, Steve forgets if it’s in Germany, Switzerland, or France. 

It’s a beautiful, late-spring day, still cool from the crisp mountain air. Steve slows down to take it all in, lets Sam keep up a while. 

“Married, huh?” Sam tells him, panting. 

Steve considers running away in lieu of letting Sam call him out.

Still, he hasn’t ever been a coward, and there’s no point in starting now. 

“Married,” Steve says. 

“I get it now,” Sam tells him, sweat beading on his brow. 

“It’s the only way that people get it,” Steve says, watching the greenery fly by. His friends know the truth now. They understand. 

Sam doubles over — Steve has sped up, without thinking, and he’s wiped himself out keeping up. Sam is a very good friend, but Steve doesn’t feel quite like stopping, so he runs, feeling each breath, feeling the air on his skin, feeling something like free. 

—

Telling strangers that he’s married comes back to bite Steve in the ass one sunny afternoon on the Andalusian coast. A dark-eyed woman — a tourist, American — gives him a keen once-over before asking Steve for some conversation over a drink. 

“Thank you,” he says, automatic, “but I’m married.” 

Her eyes flash and her mouth curls. “That’s quite alright,” she says. 

—

The next morning, Steve rises for his customary run, only to find Natasha looming over him. “Under no circumstances are you to leave this room,” she says. “This city is crawling with reporters and suits.” 

“I’ve been made?” Steve asks. 

“Worse,” Natasha says. She shoves a magazine into Steve’s hands, and where did she get this? It’s in English and the sun has barely started creeping over the horizon, so most of Spain won’t even be awake for hours. Hell, most of Spain just went to sleep.

Steve is on the front cover, bearded, with his hat down. The headline reads, in glaring, lurid, bold type, ‘ _Steve Rogers: Married. Love On the Run for Fugitive Captain America?_ ’

Steve opens the magazine with a sigh and finds the sprawling, four-page feature that speculates about which female member of the Avengers has stolen his heart. Natasha gets an entire page, with photos of the two of them together. Steve is almost certain she’s going to frame it.

Steve cringes when Princess Shuri is mentioned: “In his exile, Captain America has become close with Wakandan ruler King T’Challa, who has recently revealed the truth about his technologically-advanced nation to the world. Is the King’s adorable sister the reason?”

“She’s sixteen,” Steve says, looking up at Natasha with despair. 

Natasha laughs at him.

The article, which really thinks Steve likes ‘em young, concludes that Wanda is the likeliest match. There are photos of her and Peggy side-by-side.

Natasha produces fourteen more magazines and newspapers. Steve is not sure where she was hiding them. “I emailed you some links, too,” she says. “Enjoy your time reading while I find our way out of this mess.”

—

Sam, who is a good friend but will still definitely mock Steve about this, comes over with food and more magazines. 

“Which one’s your favorite?” Sam asks. 

Steve takes the sandwich Sam brought and then puts his head in his hands. 

Predictably, Sam laughs. 

“I like the one that thinks you and Stark really fell out ‘cause you stole Pepper Potts from him. Calls her the Yoko Ono of the Avengers. Do you get that reference yet?”

Steve sighs. “The one that thinks it's Tony is pretty good. I laughed. They had a lot of nicknames for us. And I read about Yoko Ono…seems like she got a raw deal.”

“You're not wrong,” Sam says. “No one ever wants to blame the white guys. Though like…I guess Barnes would really be the Yoko Ono of the Avengers.” 

Steve smiles at Bucky’s name — a soft and wistful thing. 

“You’re disgusting,” Sam says. “At least get laid first.” 

Steve grins, vicious, at the opening Sam has just given him.

Sam blanches.

Things devolve quickly from there. When Natasha comes back, Steve is chasing Sam around the hotel room, regailing him with excerpts from the decade plus that Steve and Bucky spent _getting laid_ together while Sam covers his ears and screams, “ **Nanananana, I can’t hear you.** ”

Steve and Sam freeze. Natasha just sighs, resigned to her fate, and then decides whose side she’s on.

(It’s Steve’s. She tackles Sam and pins him to the ground so he’s got no choice but to listen). 

—

Natasha makes swift work of getting them out of the country. They travel by cargo plane to Casablanca. 

“Casablanca, really?” Sam asks.

Natasha shrugs. “Self-sacrificing bastards who give up love for their cause are a theme.”

“Hey,” Steve says. “I saw that when it came out.”

He’d been with Bucky and the Commandos in London. Bucky had always loved Bogey, so Steve made it happen — anything to see him smile, a damn rare sight in those days. Steve kept watching Bucky’s face, rapt in fascination, instead of the screen. Bucky looked crestfallen when Rick gave up Ilsa so that she could go help save the world: Steve took his hand, in the dark of the theater — a risk in a lifetime of risks — but it made Bucky’s mouth curl in surprised pleasure. 

What Steve wouldn’t do now, to make Bucky happy — even if making Bucky happy means giving him up. 

Fuck. Natasha is right. He bickers about it with her for an hour, anyway. Sam joins in. 

This little family of Steve’s, they are enough. Missing Bucky is an ever-present ache, but it makes the sweet things shine that much brighter.

—

Steve’s phone rings when he’s exploring a souk in Marrakech. He’s contemplating his level of need for a beautiful, hand-woven blanket, and also wondering if any of the tourists are secretly press. It’s a bright and noisy place — twisting with life, with smell and color. It is easy to disappear, in a market, and Steve hopes that he is doing a good job. He doesn’t want to flee Morocco yet. 

So, the phone rings. Steve figures it’s T’Challa, calling with some update on his international standing, and he steps into a corner, hoping he won’t catch too much attention with his crazy, high-tech toy. He answers without looking. 

The market goes silent. 

All the colors and smells and sounds fade away, because on the other side of the call, on the screen of Steve’s phone — it’s Bucky. 

He’s wearing traditional Wakandan garb, with his hair braided back from his face. He looks — unhappy, his mouth doing that little curled thing it does when there’s something bothering him, but he’d rather chew off his remaining arm than let Steve know. He’s breathtaking, still, the bright blue of his eyes, and the sharp lines of his face, and — _he called_. Steve can’t stop staring. Steve should probably stop staring, and say something, because Bucky _called_ , and he didn’t call to watch Steve gawk at him like a fish. 

“Buck,” Steve manages, after at least thirty seconds of silence, his voice too hushed, too sweet, too reverent. “Hi.” 

“Steve,” Bucky says, his voice strained. “I hear — congratulations are in order.” 

Steve’s response is an inelegant, “Huh?” 

Bucky frowns at him. Steve hates when Bucky frowns at him. “Congratulations,” Bucky says, like Steve is a complete idiot, “on your marriage.” 

Oh, Steve is a complete idiot. 

Of course, with his face and mystery-spouse on the cover of every rag and publication (really, _New York Times?_ ), Bucky would have heard about Steve’s marriage. 

Bucky would have heard about Steve’s marriage — to someone else. Bucky would have thought that Steve had just — moved on, given up on him, pledged his life to someone else after _everything_. 

Idiot might be a kind descriptor, because Steve shouldn’t have ever, ever let Bucky feel like that, not even for a moment, not even over an un-truth. 

“So,” Bucky says, because Steve has been silent for an inappropriate length or time. “Who’s — who’s the dame? Or uh, fella. That’s — I know that’s allowed now.” 

They’re in the future, and this is a video call, so Steve gets to watch the grief wash over Bucky’s face in real time. He’s got to fix this. 

Steve has two options. He can tell Bucky it’s a rumor, or he can tell Bucky the terrifying, uncomfortable truth. 

Sarah Rogers didn’t raise a coward. 

“You,” Steve says, resolute and firm, like when he’s going to war or starting a fight or drawing a line he won’t cross at the edge of what’s right. 

Bucky blinks, swallowing something down. “I think I’d remember that. It’s not Wanda like that magazine thinks, is it? ‘Cause she’s too young for you.” 

“It’s you, Buck,” Steve says. 

“Please don’t tell me it’s birdbrain,” Bucky says, voice cracked like he’s pleading for something else.

“Buck,” Steve says. “You’re not hearing me. It’s you. We’ve never had a wedding, you and me — but I wanted everyone to know that I’m not on the market. It’s you. It’s always gonna be you.” 

Steve watches Bucky breathe in, close his eyes, breathe out. A slow smile creeps across Bucky’s face, replacing the etched-in sorrow. “It’s me?” Bucky says.

They’re hundreds of miles apart, looking at each other through (impeccably made and very high-definition, thank you, Shuri) phone screens, but Steve hasn’t seen Bucky smile like this in seventy years. 

It is at that precise moment that Shuri bursts into frame. “Ha! What did I tell you, sad boy? Men — you never listen! I had to make him call you, Captain,” she says. “He was scaring the children.”

“Thank you, Shuri,” Steve says, once again. He will be thanking her for as long as he lives.

Shuri, still triumphant, wanders off and leaves Bucky — still smiling, now also blushing underneath the beard — to their conversation. 

“Come visit me?” Bucky asks, shy, his eyes lit up with joy and hope.

“I’ll be there tonight,” Steve tells him.

—

“You talked to Bucky,” Natasha says when Steve comes back to the safehouse. 

“Jesus Christ, thank you,” Sam says, his eyes rolling heavenward and his hands clasped in prayer. 

Steve hasn’t even said anything. His friends are the worst; he loves them very much. 

“I’ll get us a quinjet,” Natasha says. 

“I,” Steve says, thinking, imagining, waiting. “Need to go to the market.” 

—

There is an old woman in a beautiful, blue and emerald silk hijab selling antique jewelry with a young boy and girl — grandchildren, probably — clinging to her skirt. 

This is an ancient country. It’s seen civilization change over and over again. There are rings here older than he is. 

Steve hesitates, looks at them. Does he dare presume? The way that Bucky smiled — 

Steve does not stop to touch the rings.

There are teapots, a few booths over — hundreds of them, up the walls of the little shop, stacked all the way to the ceiling — sold by a gregarious man who tells Steve what their age is and pulls out matching cups and offers Steve sets that are bigger, older, more elaborate.

Steve picks something simple — a silver pot with a delicate design, and matching glasses. He’s a man without a country now: a nomad, and Steve hopes that Bucky knows what the gift means. 

He also buys Natasha some tea, because he knows what’s good for him, and then a crinkled paper sack full of assorted shapes and sizes of sweet pastries for Sam. He buys a beautiful cashmere scarf for Shuri and a pair of colorful babouches for T’Challa. 

He’s walking back with his arms full of gifts and his heart full of love and something like hope when he passes the old woman selling jewelry again. 

This time, Steve stops. 

There’s a silver ring, engraved with a delicate filigree design. It’s old — Steve and the merchant don’t speak each other’s language, but she gets the point across. Who knows who crafted it, who has owned it, who has worn it, but It’s lasted this long. 

Steve buys it, presumption be damned. He and Bucky, they’ve lasted this long, too.

—

“Quick,” Natasha says. “We’re in the air, and he’s definitely not going to jump out of this plane. Make him talk about his feelings, Sam.”

Steve is vibrating out of his skin. This is it — he and Bucky are going to figure their shit out — it’s scarier than any battle. He flips Natasha off.

Sam turns his calm, neutral, friendly VA-counselor face on, and looks at Steve, expectant. Steve flips him off, too.

“What are you gonna do, man?” Sam says, wholly undeterred by Steve’s best efforts at shutting the world out.

Steve crosses his arms and frowns.

“We’re on your side,” Sam reminds him. 

“I’m — “ Steve says, staring out the window, watching the world fly by beneath them, and resolutely avoiding Sam’s kind face. Shit, he really can’t escape, at least not without significantly delaying his arrival time in Wakanda. “I’m going to find out what makes Bucky happy.”

“How about you?” Sam asks. “Have you found what makes you happy?”

Steve hesitates. He’s never learned to take things for himself. He’s never learned to talk about what’s in his heart. However, it seems like he should probably try. He needs the practice. “Since he came back,” Steve says, “All I’ve wanted was to pull him close and tell him how bad I missed him, that I’ve got him. That I’m with him. I get to do that, even once — that’s a start.”

“A start is something,” Sam says. “It’s more than you could tell me when we met.”

—

Shuri and half-a-dozen Doras meet them when they land. The Doras are serious, but Shuri is all smiles. She greets each of them in turn, warm, gracious, laughing.

Steve’s heart cannot contain all the gratitude he feels for her — this brilliant young woman who gave Bucky back his freedom. He gives Shuri the scarf from the souk, and she throws it around her neck and twirls. “Thanks,” Shuri says. “You’re not bad… for a colonizer.”

Steve looks at her, pleading-eyed and bright with hope. She laughs — there’s no malice in it. “I’ll take you to him.”

Natasha and Sam get swept away to the palace, and Shuri leads Steve to a mode of transportation which might be a train or might be a rocketship. 

“Where is he?” Steve asks. “How is he?”

“Much better since I pioneered medical technology to un-brainwash him,” Shuri says. “He’s living in the village. We’ll get there fast. You can ask him the rest yourself.”

“Thank you, Shuri,” Steve says.

She shakes your head. “You two are worse than my brother and Nakia. At least one of them can talk to the other.”

“How is T’Challa?” Steve asks.

Shuri beams with poorly-disguised pride and affection. “He and Nakia are in Namibia. They’re working with some of Nakia’s contacts to open a school.”

“When’s the royal wedding?” Steve asks.

“Tomorrow, if it were up to my brother,” she says. “Nakia is not in a hurry. She loves him, but she loves her work, too.”

“It’s always simple, in the stories,” Steve says. “You fall in love and live happily ever after.”

Shuri makes a face. “My lab and I can live happily ever after. All this seems like a mess.”

“Bucky and I were together already, when I was your age,” Steve says.

“I forget you’re a grandpa sometimes because of — “ she makes a hand gesture in the general direction of Steve’s physical form. “But that was a grandpa thing to say.” 

“Things were different back then,” Steve says. 

“Better?” Shuri asks, raising an eyebrow.

Steve laughs. “I’ll take not getting arrested for kissing Bucky in public, thanks.” 

Shuri makes a face. “Sounds primitive. Never happened here.”

—

They arrive at the village. Steve’s heart is in his throat. This is it. 

The sun is bright. There are children playing — they point at Steve and whisper amongst themselves. 

“They have taken a liking to your friend,” Shuri says. 

“Bucky was always good with kids,” Steve tells her, proud, like always. 

Shuri shakes her head. “Save it for him, lover boy. You know you’re the second white man they’ve ever seen?”

Steve tries to smile and wave, or anything. He doesn’t do a good job. Shuri cringes. He was never the one that was good with kids. 

“There,” Shuri says. “This is his hut. The one with all the goats. I’ll give you some privacy. No guarantees about the children so… make sure you take it inside.”

At least someone’s optimistic. 

“Oh come on,” Shuri says, looking at his face, appalled. “You can’t seriously think he’s going to say no to… whatever you’re planning. I can’t.”

She walks off, and then Steve is alone, looking at the home that Bucky has found for himself while several suspicious goats look back. A little gray one wanders over. Steve reaches out to give its head a scritch — it doesn’t bite, hopefully a sign of fortuitous things to come.

It is at that precise moment that Bucky emerges from his hut, hair pulled half up, his robes sunset orange. “You’ve met your namesake, I see,” he says. 

Steve takes one look at Bucky’s face, the familiar, loved lines of it illuminated with equal parts anxiety and hope, and he pulls Bucky in for a tight hug.

“Hi,” Steve says. “I missed you.”

Bucky lets out a soft breath and ducks his head into the crook of Steve’s neck.

Steve’s heart swells. He imagines strings. “I’m here,” Steve says, holding Bucky tighter. “I’ve got you.”

Bucky’s fingers curl into Steve’s shirt, clutching the fabric. Steve breathes him in, basking in the clean, warm scent of him. He was right. This is a start. This is home. 

“I thought —” Bucky says.

He strokes Bucky’s back. “I know. I’m sorry, honey.” 

“Honey?” Bucky asks. He looks up. His eyes are very blue, sparkling with amusement. “Since when have I been ‘honey’?”

“You can be a lot of new things now,” Steve says, tender, lost in the moment.

Bucky laughs, sweet and giddy. “You’ve gone soft in your old age, Rogers.”

“Yep,” Steve says, and then he strokes Bucky’s cheek, feeling the rough stubble underneath his palm, because Steve knows Bucky, and that look on Bucky’s face has only ever meant one thing. 

Steve lets Bucky come in for the kiss: their first in almost seventy years. They surge together, desperate. In that moment, he’s fifteen and kissing Bucky on the rooftop, so in love he’s bursting with it. All the years and all the loss and all the bloodshed fall away — there’s just him and Bucky, like they’ve always been. 

Bucky’s lips are soft; he parts them. Kissing him with a beard is new. The way Bucky pulls away and nips at Steve’s lower lip has lasted almost a century. Bucky tastes the same, teases the same, but there’s a new ferocity now. He kisses Steve and holds on to Steve like someone who has lost — and then found — everything. 

Steve tangles a hand in Bucky’s long hair, seeking every possible anchor. This is it — Bucky’s hot mouth, his body pressed against Steve’s — this is all Steve needs on this earth.

The sun shines. Birds sing. They keep kissing, breathless and wild with it.

“Marry me,” Steve says, when they come up for air. 

“Aren’t you already telling the whole world I did?” Bucky says.

Steve kisses the smirk right off his face. “Marry me for real. Officially.”

Bucky stares at him, bug-eyed and unblinking. It’s terrible that Steve still thinks he’s cute. “You want to marry me,” Bucky says.

“Obviously,” Steve tells him.

“I’m some crazy, one-armed guy wearing your best friend’s face with nothing to offer you besides some goats and about forty percent of my memories,” Bucky says.

“Marry me,” Steve says.

“I won’t even let you eat the goats!” Bucky says.

Steve laughs, and then says, “Marry me.”

A smile creeps across Bucky’s face, from slow and shocked to big and bright, like a kid that just got a Christmas present he’d been too afraid to even ask for. 

That’s all the encouragement Steve needs. He gets down on one knee. “Buck, you’ve been stuck with me for the last hundred years or so,” he says, pulling out the silver ring from the market. “How about you at least get some jewelry and a party for it?” 

“You bought a ring, you presumptuous bastard,” Bucky says, snatching it out of Steve’s hand. 

“I’m supposed to put it on you,” Steve says, smirking. 

Bucky is looking at the ring, tracing the engraved pattern. “You bought a ring,” Bucky says, his voice hushed.

“Figured I had a chance after we talked,” Steve says. He’s still down on one knee, and some children are now watching with interest. 

“We could really do it,” Bucky says, looking somewhere with wistful eyes. 

Steve knows what he’s remembering — their long-ago past, with all its sweetness and all its sorrows. Steve remembers, too. But in this moment, he’s thinking only of their future.

Steve takes Bucky’s hand, which still clutches the ring, and kisses it. “How about it, Buck?”

Bucky sighs at the soft little gesture. ”Seventy years, and you still surprise me,” he says, and then he bends down for a quick, sweet kiss and presses the ring back into Steve’s hand. “Yes. I’ll marry you.”

Steve smiles so hard his face hurts when he puts the ring on Bucky’s finger. There it is, on Bucky’s hand. It shines — an old thing — like the promise of the future.

Bucky looks from Steve to the ring and back again, all unmoored, soft awe. 

“So,” Steve says, surging up to grab Bucky in his arms for a messy kiss and an inelegant spin. “How about a tour of the hut?”

Bucky lets out an indignant squawk of protest, but lets himself be hauled inside like a ( _very_ loved) sack of potatoes.

— 

Steve holds Bucky close and runs his hand up and down the bare skin of Bucky’s back. He shivers at every little touch. It’s been so long for him, Steve knows, since someone touched him just for the tenderness of it. 

“Mine,” Steve whispers, nuzzling into Bucky’s hair and giving voice to his ridiculous, protective, possessive feelings. 

Bucky laughs, low and self-deprecating. “You see a lot of competition for my affections, Stevie?”

“Mine forever,” Steve says, taking Bucky’s hand and running his thumb over the ring he put on Bucky’s finger.

Bucky laughs, this time bright and full of joy. He wiggles out of Steve’s grasp — unfair — to lean back on his elbow and look Steve in the eye. “You’re really serious about this,” he says, incredulous. 

Steve makes a face and reaches for him. “Obviously.”

“I’m trouble, Steve,” Bucky says, suddenly very serious. “A lifetime of trouble.”

“My trouble,” Steve says. Sure, this might not be the most mature way to handle Bucky’s crushing self-doubt, but blind stubbornness has worked for Steve more often than it’s failed.

Bucky shakes his head. “You should have… a different kind of life.”

“One, that’s my choice,” Steve says. “Two, I’m an outlaw now. No picket fences on the run.”

“You wouldn’t be running if it weren’t for me.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “You think I’d have taken the SRA lying down without you?”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Obviously not. You’ve never let a damn fight go in your whole life. But you would have handled it different. You can’t think straight if I’m involved.”

Steve reaches out to push an errant lock of hair out of Bucky’s face. “It’s true. Haven’t been able to do much of anything straight around you since that night on the roof.”

Bucky screws his face up, struggling not to laugh. “You’re impossible.”

“You love it.”

“It’s true,” Bucky says, with a put-upon sigh. “I’ve loved you longer, you know.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve says. His hand still hasn’t found its way out of Bucky’s hair.

“Yeah. I knew for three years, before the roof,” Bucky says. “You almost died, that first winter. I thought it was my fault, on account of my sin.”

“I almost died every winter!” Steve says, laughing. 

“Hey,” Bucky says. “It’s still not funny. I was so afraid I’d lose you. I promised — swore — I’d never do a thing about my feelings, wouldn’t ever act on my sin, if you just lived.”

“Three years, huh?” Steve says, thinking, playing absently with Bucky’s hair. He winds a curl around his finger. Three years is a long time when you’re young, like they were, and in love. Three years is a long time to keep something from your best friend, when you orbit one another like twin stars. Steve was the one who told Bucky first. If Steve had ever known how to keep his big mouth shut, would Bucky have kept that promise forever? 

Bucky nods, remembering his youthful yearning. His eyes flutter. Steve brushes a finger against the thick fringe of his lashes, just to feel them move — a strange little intimacy. In return, Bucky kisses his palm. “Every day, I wanted to tell you. Every day.”

Suddenly, Steve knows the real reason Bucky wasn’t calling, all those months. “All these years, and you’re still trying to protect me from yourself,” Steve says. 

Bucky shrugs. He looks small, vulnerable, the way he never was when they were kids. Steve had grown up basking in the burning light of him — Bucky had been the brightest and the best-liked and the strongest, and he’d had the nerve to turn out handsome, too. Steve might have hated him if he hadn’t fallen in love instead.

“Let’s get this straight, pal,” says Steve, “ _You_ have always been too good for _me_. I have never needed protecting from you.”

“The time I nearly beat you to death after shooting you a few times comes to mind,” Bucky says.

“Operative word: nearly,” Steve says. “You didn’t know your own mind, but you still saved me.” 

“Still did it,” Bucky says.

“If you had wanted to kill me, I would be dead,” Steve says. They’ve had this conversation before — it’s becoming an old fight, like Steve joining the army or the double-dates used to be. Christ, they hadn’t realized how innocent they were back then. “They ordered you, and you didn’t listen. They made you forget everything, but you still remembered me.” 

“They burned you out of my mind again and again,” Bucky says, “but it never stuck.”

Steve sits up so that he can chase Bucky across the bed and pull him close, enfold him, protect him from the memories of things Steve should never have allowed to happen in the first place. He runs his hand up and down Bucky’s upper arm, hard muscle and soft skin. Steve cannot stop reveling in the selfish wonder of touching him.

For his part, Bucky leans in and lets himself be held. 

“If you’re not ready, if you don’t want to do this, just say,” Steve tells him. “But don’t do it for me. I’m right where I want to be.”

Bucky puts his head on Steve’s shoulder. “It’s not fair.” 

“What’s not fair?” Steve asks him.

“I killed people. None of them get to come back and marry the love of their life,” Bucky says.

That’s an old fight now, too. “You ever gonna believe you were also a victim?” Steve asks.

Bucky shrugs. It’s the kind of shrug that means, ‘probably no.’

“Would I love you this much if you weren’t this stubborn?”

“Probably not,” Bucky says, too tender for the teasing. “You’d never be able to relate.”

Steve kisses him, then, deep and intimate. Oh, he missed this part. Steve missed everything, but no one talks about the way you miss your lover’s body when he dies. Steve has him back — Steve really, finally, has him back. 

Bucky breaks away, his mouth very red, lips swollen. Steve loves him like this. (Steve loves him always). Bucky’s blue eyes are dark. Steve knows what he means by them.

“More engagement sex?” Steve asks.

Bucky rolls his eyes and tackles Steve — a program Steve is happy to get with.

—

“Well,” Bucky says, after engagement sex rounds three through six, but before engagement sex rounds seven through twelve (supersoldier stamina is awesome). “Guess we better plan this thing. When do you want to get married?”

“Tomorrow,” Steve says. “I don’t think we’ll make it out of bed today.” Bucky is curled, sleepy-eyed and messy-haired, in his arms, and Steve still has many, many plans left for their afternoon, and evening, and the night...

“You’d better get out of bed today,” Bucky says. “Someone needs to bring me food, and the goats can’t do it.”

Steve grins. “So tomorrow works?”

“Of course tomorrow doesn’t fucking work!” Bucky says, face still pressed into the crook of Steve’s neck. Steve has missed winding him up — it’s the little things, really.

“Diva,” Steve says. 

Bucky pinches his side. Steve yelps.

“We cannot get married tomorrow,” Bucky says, very slowly.

“No,” Steve says. “We cannot get married yesterday, or the day before that. Tomorrow? Totally fair game.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Bucky says. “You cannot fly the rest of your friends, many of whom are spies and also fugitives who are currently underground, in from around the world, in one day. You cannot get T’Challa back from his diplomatic mission in one fucking day. And that’s not a fucking challenge! It’s just a veto!”

“Well,” Steve says, starting to think about logistics. 

“No!” Bucky says.

“What about the day after tomorrow?” Steve says.

“Is there a sex act I could offer to get you to wait one week?” Bucky says.

“You already offer me all of the sex acts,” Steve says. “And I know you won’t take any of them back.” 

Bucky rolls his eyes heavenward, but does not deny the veracity of Steve’s claim.

Steve rubs his back, conciliatory. Bucky can’t help but shiver. Steve’s attention racks focus in one sharp moment.

“What if I ask real nice?” Bucky says, voice low.

“You don’t know how,” Steve says, walking his fingertips down Bucky’s spine.

“I have my ways,” Bucky says, caressing Steve’s chest.

They don’t talk for a while after that.

—

“Okay,” Steve says, much later. “There’s one thing that could make me wait.”

“Yes,” Bucky says. (Steve tries to hold back his grin and delay the moment that Bucky realizes his mistake). “Anything.”

Steve grins. Bucky’s eyes go wide.

“Steve,” Bucky says. “I didn’t —”

“Too late!” Steve says. He gives Bucky a very sweet kiss. 

Bucky sighs. “Fine. Just tell me.”

—

“Why am I marrying you again?” Bucky asks. He is scowling.

“Because you’ve been in love with me for like eighty-five years,” Steve says. “Hah!”

“Eighty-eight years,” Bucky corrects, with a great deal of self-deprecation. “You really think we can do it? Without getting arrested and tried in an international court?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “I know a guy.”

—

“You want me to… get New York State marriage licenses for two very famous and highly-wanted fugitives, one of whom is legally dead, and then sneak an entire wedding party, comprised primarily of fugitives and literal royalty, into one of the biggest tourist traps in New York?” Natasha asks. 

“Hey,” Steve says. “Coney Island isn’t a tourist trap.” 

Bucky sighs. Steve has been hearing that sigh since oh, 1925 or so. Steve missed that sigh. He takes Bucky’s hand and gives it a squeeze. 

“But yeah,” Steve says. “That’s what I want.” 

Natasha sighs, too. She and Bucky exchange a long-suffering look that both warms Steve’s heart and curdles his blood. They’re going to team up against him. It’s going to be scary. At least Sam will always be on his side. 

“I mean,” Natasha says, “I could probably — “ 

The gears of a puzzle that needs solving, one that only she could figure out — start turning over in Natasha’s head. Steve sees the moment it happens. As a good leader, it’s his job to know his team — and to know how to push their buttons. 

“Wipe that smug grin off your face, Rogers,” Natasha says. “If I do this, I’m calling best man.”

“Hey,” Sam says, walking into the room. “No way. I get best man.” 

Natasha ignores him, because she’s got a tablet out and is creating some kind of chart.

“I’m serious,” Sam says. “I’m best man.”

Natasha appears to have hacked into some sort of government database.

“Steve!” Sam says.

Bucky sticks his tongue out at Sam. Steve is going to have to make them get along at some point, probably. 

That, however, will have to wait. They’ve got a wedding to plan.

—

“The crucial ingredients of a wedding,” Bucky says, “Are food, booze, and guests. In that order.” 

“Food: Nathan’s and pizza,” Steve says. “Booze: we get beer. Guests: those of our friends that haven’t recently tried to kill you are cordially invited.” 

“You want to serve hot dogs and beer at our wedding?” Bucky says. 

“And pizza,” Steve adds. 

“I can’t decide whether to kiss you or slug you.” 

“Both is fine.” 

Bucky laughs — which was, of course, the goal. He’s beautiful like this, joyful and relaxed with all the world, all their future, glittering ahead of them. “You really mean it?”

“I want to buy a million of the things we couldn’t ever afford as kids and feed them to our friends,” Steve says — and then, more softly. “And you.”

Bucky kisses him, then — sweet and soft and like they’re new again, innocent, without a hundred years on their backs.

Steve kisses him back the same. They stop planning, for a little while. 

—

Bucky’s in his arms, eyes shut, blissed out — still coming down, shivering and overwhelmed from the tenderness of what just passed between them.

Steve feels — protective, possessive, boundless. He wants always to be the person who does this for Bucky, who makes him feel good and safe and loved.

Bucky’s eyes flash open. “Steve,” he says.

“What, Buck?” Steve says, concern spiking.

“How the hell are we gonna do the reception?”

—

“Don’t worry, Buck,” Steve says. “I’ve got a plan.” 

“That,” Bucky says, “Is exactly why I’m worried.” 

“We’ll be married at the end of it either way,” Steve promises. “Even if we get arrested.” 

Bucky pinches his side and then kisses him. 

Steve can’t stop basking in the glow of it, of being home, because home has always been a blue-eyed boy with a wicked smirk and the kindest heart that Steve has ever known. 

— 

“I’ve figured it out,” Natasha tells him, four days later. Her hair is in total disarray, like Steve has never seen it. He doesn’t want to ask when she last slept. 

_‘Did you get a picture?’_ Steve mouths to Sam. 

Sam gives him a thumbs up. 

“I heard that, you assholes,” Natasha says. “You are very lucky that I enjoy puzzles, and also that I’m too tired to murder you both.” 

“That’s a lie,” Steve says. “You could totally murder us. You just don’t want to.” 

Steve carries her back to the room where she’s staying after she falls asleep on the floor. It’s the least he can do. 

—

“I’m going to ask Shuri to be my best man,” Bucky says. His chest is pressed against Steve’s back as they sit in the shade of an acacia tree, watching the sunset. His voice is a deep and pleasant murmur in Steve’s ear. 

“Want me to come with you and hold your hand?” Steve says, reaching back to stroke Bucky’s hair, drunk on casual affection. 

“... Yes,” Bucky says. “Have you decided who’s going to be yours, yet?”

“I’m gonna make Sam and Nat squirm for a few more days before I tell ‘em they both got the job. They’re gonna hate it.” 

“You’re the worst,” Bucky says, laughing, a low rumble. “I fuckin’ adore you. Can we ask T’Challa to officiate? He’s done so much — I want him to be part of it.” 

“Yeah,” Steve says, thinking of all that they owe the king of Wakanda. “He should be a part of it.”

–

“Would you marry us?” Bucky asks.

T’Challa blinks. 

“Not in the way that would make Nakia upset,” Bucky clarifies. 

T’Challa relaxes. “It would be my honor.” 

“We don’t need you to say much,” Steve assures him. “All we care is that the we’re married at the end.”

“I’ve seen Western weddings in films,” T’Challa says, “And there was the royal wedding I went to in England last year.”

“Great,” says Bucky. “You know the drill.”

—

The first part of Natasha’s plan, somewhat inexplicably, involves flying to Alaska — specifically, Nome. 

Sam, shivering in his fluffy parka, is skeptical. “She’s punishing me for taking the photo of her hair.”

Steve is not a fan of the cold either, not after seventy years in the ice, but he just gives Sam a little, “Yeah, mhm,” otherwise occupied.

Bucky is crouched down petting sled dog puppies, snowflakes sparkling in his hair. 

“You’re useless around him,” Sam says, shaking his head.

Steve cannot fight back, so lost is he in the violin string stirring of his heart.

A puppy nips at Bucky’s parka, rearing up on its little back legs, and he laughs, clear and bright.

“I get to marry him,” Steve says. “I finally get to marry him.”

—

Their little band of fugitives arrives in Alaska, several at a time: Wanda, Clint and his family, Scott. Steve sent word to Thor, but sending messages to Thor is always kind of a crapshoot. The Wakandan delegation will be making its own way to New York, as they are not outlaws in 117 nations. 

“Is there anyone else we should invite?” Steve frets. “Your nieces and nephews? Anyone related to the Howlies?”

Bucky stops the excellent thing he was doing with his mouth to say, “If you ever mention my nieces and nephews in our bed again, it’ll be the last time you ever see me naked.”

“That is an empty threat,” Steve says. “Besides, you’re not even naked right now.”

“Bringing the parka into this is unfair,” Bucky says. “You said you wouldn’t make fun of me if I kept it on. You said you wanted me to be comfortable, and you said that I was cute with it on…”

“Buck,” Steve says, honestly pretty desperate to get Bucky’s mouth to resume its clever work. “You are adorable in the parka.”

“And warm,” Bucky says, threatening.

“So warm and so adorable,” Steve agrees. 

Bucky frowns, searching for more ways to brandish his current leverage over Steve. 

“You already get whatever you want from me,” Steve points out.

Bucky pouts. “You have to say nice things about me at the wedding.”

Steve laughs, and pulls him up for a kiss. “I was already gonna say nice things about you at the wedding.”

“You have to promise,” Bucky says. 

“I promise, babe,” Steve says. 

Bucky blushes a soft and rosy pink at the name, and finally, blessedly goes back to what he was doing with his mouth. 

—

The plane lands in New York. 

“So we’re just going to… walk into Coney Island,” Bucky says, “And somehow not get put in an underground prison.” 

“Yep!” says Steve. 

“Trust me,” says Natasha. 

“Actually,” says Scott, “it’s a floating prison, on the sea.” 

—

When they arrive in Coney Island, it’s like a forgotten childhood fantasy: the park is empty, all lines gone, the rides still running. 

“How?” Steve manages to ask, tearing his eyes from Bucky’s joyful face to gawk at Natasha. 

“Someone called in a bomb threat,” she says, flat. “Congratulations, we’re the FBI.” 

And indeed, the vans they took to their ad hoc wedding venue are marked. Natasha passes out badges (just in case). Shuri sets up a couple of kimoyo beads. “They’re holographic,” she explains. “Anyone who looks will see an active investigation, bomb squads, white men with sunglasses, all that stuff.” 

Sam pops open the back of one of the vans and starts distributing the dress bags containing everyone’s wedding outfits. 

There have been a few different iterations since the Howlies, but Steve always has the best team. He gives Bucky’s hand a soft squeeze — it’s almost time. 

—

The sun starts dipping, golden, towards the edge of the sea, when Steve and Bucky gather, surrounded by friends. Shuri stands by Bucky’s side. Sam and Natasha, who have made tentative peace with sharing best man, stand by Steve’s. 

Steve cannot tear his eyes from Bucky, resplendent in his suit and in the magic hour light. Someone put tiny, elaborate braids at his temples. Have his eyes always been that precise, storm and sapphire blue?

Steve can hardly hear T’Challa’s words over the joyful, giddy pounding of his own heart. 

“The grooms would like to say a few words,” T’Challa says — and that’s their cue. Bucky goes first. 

“Steve,” Bucky says, very serious. “You have the worst attitude of anyone I’ve ever met. You’re completely impossible, and have no idea how to walk away from any kind of fight. And that’s only my second or third favorite thing about you. I can’t even imagine how much nonsense you’re going to drag me over the course of a lifetime, and I can’t wait to find out.”

“Bucky,” Steve says, “You’re the kindest and most loving person I’ve ever known, and nothing that’s happened has managed to take an ounce of that from you. I’m so lucky that you fell in love with me before you knew any better. I’m so proud.”

“Do you take one another,” T’Challa says, “to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for as long as you both shall live, until death do you part?”

“We’ve done all of that already,” Bucky says. “And I’ve tried the death bit.”

Steve laughs, so happy he could just float away like a balloon or a cotton candy cloud. “Can’t get away from me that easy,” he says, leaning in to steal a kiss. 

“Ahem,” says T’Challa. 

“Sorry,” says Steve. And then — “I do.”

“I do,” says Bucky. 

Steve puts the ring on Bucky’s finger; Bucky does the same. They’re tied together the same as they always were — it changes nothing, and also everything,

Steve kisses Bucky again, this time, as his husband. This kiss is not stolen. 

—

“Married,” Steve says, grinning. He’s sitting with Bucky on a wooden bench, and they’re devouring their very fancy reception dinner of half-a-dozen coneys each as the sun goes down.

Bucky presses his thigh against Steve’s and keeps munching down.

Steve gets lost, for a moment, in the curve of Bucky’s smile.

Clint is putting his carnie knowledge towards operating some rides, and the people they love in this new century are running rampant and giddy through a place Steve and Bucky have loved since they were kids. 

“The life we’re going to lead together...” Steve says, because it’s — well, it’s fraught, and full of uncertainty and misadventures — but it’s theirs, and that’s so beautiful that Steve could burst with it.

“I know,” Bucky says. Steve looks into his eyes and Bucky looks back, his eyes full of their shared understanding. He knows. That’s all there is to it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments and [share this story on tumblr](https://wintergaydar.tumblr.com/post/185896970565/fic-let-this-be-light-work-caughtinanocean). I'm [wintergaydar](https://wintergaydar.tumblr.com/) over there, and we should be friends. Subscribe on AO3 to make sure you don't miss my next fic!


End file.
